2016

Excellence in Digital Transformation

Winner

Ralph Rivera - BBC

Ralph was the catalyst for the digital transformation journey that repositioned the BBC as an open public service platform serving the broader creative ecosystem.

His vision, strategy and implementation have driven a culture change in an organisation that primarily saw itself as a programme maker and distributor. Initiatives such as MyBBC now enable the organisation to engage with individuals, create personalised products and develop CRM capabilities. There are now over 6 million active registered users, with real-time analytics informing curation and editorial decisions.

Ralph was instrumental in launching BBC Taster to incubate and distribute new online native formats, and driving digital creativity and coding through the micro:bit distributed to Year 7 students. His input has extended the BBC’s overall UK online reach to a peak of 88% – second behind Google and just ahead of Facebook.

Runners up

Jora Gill - The Economist

Jora has delivered a complete overhaul of the customer experience through new CRM, eCommerce, access to digital content and segmented subscription management.

He’s led a change of culture to an agile mindset, and an organisational shift built around products not job families.

He’s effectively created a start-up culture within an established mainstream organisation, an approach that has significantly cut lead-times for new and better digital products, features and service ideas.

A move to the Cloud – completed in 6 months – has led to greater agility and significantly cut costs, setting budgets free to support new digital ventures.

Mark Dearnley - HMRC

Mark set out the digital vision for HMRC’s ambitious transformation plans.

At its heart are digital tax accounts that bring together everything in one place online for customers. Over the past year, Mark has overseen the growth of the business tax account to more than five million users, and the launch of the personal tax account, now serving one and a half million taxpayers. In all, his teams have brought 18 new digital services to life, achieving user satisfaction levels of up to 90%.

Mark has completely changed HMRC’s delivery culture, introducing a multi-channel digital model, and championing the use of open source, agile, and DevOps. HMRC now has the biggest digital operation in government, with more than 700 digital specialists in six state-of-the-art digital delivery centres which Mark opened over the last two years.